Reclaiming My House - Project #4 - The Desk

My desk is in a very open are of the house - the living room.  Which is visible from the dining room, the entryway, the kitchen, and the laundry room.

So when it's messy, it can make the whole room (or 4 rooms!) look awful.

Here's what it looked like a couple of days ago:

Yikes.  It became a dumping ground.

Lovely, huh?

I cleared it all off and put everything away that didn't belong there.

Then, I used the large basket that I emptied during my last project, and put my printer inside of it.

I rarely use it, and when I need to, it's easy to plug in.

Here's the after:

Much better!  I still need to hide the large white laptop cord, but overall I am pleased with the result!

This is a much nicer space to work from:

Next up?  The kitchen (I think....ugh)

Reclaiming My House - Project #3 - The Baskets

I'm still plugging away on my house projects.

The next one I tackled was these two baskets that I have in the bedroom.

I've needed to go through the two baskets on the bottom for quite a while.  The larger one held my crafting supplies, notecards, etc.  The top one held my yarn and knitting needles.  They were both a mess and I wasn't sure I needed them both.

I got started with my trusty sidekick right by my side.

The first basket....

And the second...

I cleaned them both out and got rid of anything that I hadn't used in a while.  Then I transferred all of my yarn and knitting needles into this bag:

It's actually a sewing machine carrier, but it holds my yarn and needles perfectly!

And it fits nicely in my closet.  The rest of my craft supplies fit into the smaller of the two baskets.

Done!  Another small project completed!

Random

*My allergies have been so bad today that my eyes are itching and burning and I've sneezed 17 times tonight (yes, I've been counting).

*My husband is hanging out with a friend tonight so it's been just me and the puppies hanging out at home.  Watson has de-stuffed his Spiderman toy and Ducky.  And I have been following him around picking up the stuffing.

*I've been watching That 70's Show on Netflix.  Well, in the usual way that I 'watch' television....on my iPad either while in the kitchen or at my desk while doing some other project.  Like blogging.  Ha ha.  Anyways, some of the episodes are really funny and some are just stupid.  Kitty and Fez are my favorite characters.  Debra Jo Rupp is awesome (she played Alice, Phoebe's much older sister-in-law on 'Friends')

She's super funny.

*I've been working on my desk tonight.  I did a smaller project last night, which I will also blog about.  It feels really good to get these things done!  I need to tackle the kitchen and the office next.  The office won't be bad.  The kitchen is another story.

*My husband is awesome....he went to Costco today (he's off this week) and got all of our usual stuff.  He remembered everything....with no list!  I was very impressed.  

*Work has been nuts, but the days are going by super fast.  However when I come home I'm pretty beat.

I think that's all.  Sorry this was a boring random update, but I can't really see anymore due to the itching and burning and I need to take my contacts out.  Good times!

Reclaiming My House - Project #2 - The French Cabinet

We have a cabinet in our dining room that I call 'The French Cabinet'.  Basically, when we decided to start learning French we started accumulating books to help us learn.  And then for our family worship evening we would use a combination of those books plus our other spiritual books and I was constantly going back and for the from the office to the dining room to wherever random spot the books were kept in the house.

So we combined everything into the cabinet, and over the past couple of months, like everything else, it got out of hand.

Here's the 'befores':

Random items had gotten thrown in there over the past few weeks, so I took everything out and sorted it all.  I found my Annual Meeting Notes, which I've been looking for because I want to type them up!  I put a few things back in the office where they belonged.  Then I put everything back on the shelves.  All of the French stuff on the bottom and the spiritual stuff on the top:

I also cleared off the top.  

Our dear friend Vernon gave us this super old French-English Dictionary, which I left on display on the top of the cabinet:

This project took maybe 20 minutes at most.  And again, I feel so much better!!

Next up?  My desk (I think).  Yikes.

Reclaiming My House - Project #1 - The Master Bathroom

I started Project #1 of my 'Reclaiming My House' project yesterday (see post below) and finished up this morning.

I started small with our master bathroom.  Well, kind of small ha ha.  Our master bathroom is the only room in our house that hasn't been updated.  So....original 70s vanity, linoleum, etc.  We have plans to eventually redo it (maybe) but it's pretty low on our list.  No one uses it except Josh and I and it's functional.  And....it's a bathroom, you know?

I am going to be brave....here are the befores:

Products EVERYWHERE.  You would think that I would be a high maintenance girl that takes an hour to do my hair and face each day.  

Nope.  But products....everywhere.  I think what happens is that I see a new product I want to try, so I buy it and instead of waiting for my old product to be finished, I open the new product and use both of them.  And this is like times ten (hairspray, lotion, shampoo, etc.).  Hence the crazy amount of products that are on the counters.

First I went through every surface, drawer, cabinet, basket, and got rid of everything I didn't like, was too old, or I hadn't used in a year.  Then I gathered all 'like' products and chose the one that was the most empty and kept that out as the one to use until empty.  The rest went into a basket (on the shelving in the picture above).

Look at my lotions:

Eleven types of lotion.  All of them went into the basket except for this one:

If I smell like Wild Berry Tulips for the next three months, then so be it!  That's right people, I said so be it.

Oh, and those lotions above didn't include my self-tanning lotions.  (I am a white, white girl):

These were the winners:

Ready for the afters?

Much better!!!  It's kind of a hodgepodge of stuff and my baskets and containers don't match, but that's not the point.  The point is that it's functional and there is WAY LESS STUFF out on the counter.  All of my 'extra' products are hidden away in the baskets.  

It took maybe 2 hours last night and just 30 minutes this morning.  Well worth it!!  

Oh and the nicest part of this whole clean out was that I found two of my rings that I had been looking for in quite a while:

Next up?  The French cabinet.

Reclaiming My House

A while back (March to be exact) I was doing SO WELL with keeping up with housework, routines, keeping things organized, etc.  I was faithfully going to the gym each weekday morning before work.  And then after work I would do one load of laundry COMPLETELY (wash, dry, fold, put away) every single day so I was NEVER behind.  It was so nice!  Then I would cook dinner and pack our lunches for the next day (using my pre-washed, chopped and bagged fruits and veggies of course) and get my gym bag ready (which was easy because the laundry was ALWAYS caught up) and all was well in the world (well in my house at least).

 And then towards the end of March I dropped everything and I mean EVERYTHING and did nothing but study for 8 days for my CCA test.  And my whole system fell apart.  The house was a mess, laundry piled up, my once nice and neat organized drawers, cabinets, etc. became a thing of the past.  Fuzz started growing on the fruit in the fridge.  I stopped going to the gym.  I stopped planning.  I stopped keeping things neat.  And I never got back into my ‘groove’ again, and never really cleaned up the mess from the whirlwind that was those eight days.  I mean, yes, I’ve cleaned the house since then, but quickly and shoving things into closets and drawers and not spending any time at all bothering to keep things neat and clutter free.  And it has started to drive me completely insane.

 I would also like to add that we got Watson during this time frame and while we love him to pieces and are keeping him forever, he is MESSY.  He de-stuffs toys, chews his plastic toys so there are little plastic bits all over the floor, chews his blankets, makes a mess with his water bowl, and sheds like crazy.  

"Who me?"

That hasn’t exactly helped the chaos.

So my goal over the next few weeks is to reclaim my house and get it back in shape.  I’m going to start this weekend.  I know it won’t happen overnight unfortunately.  But I’m okay with it.  And if I’m brave enough, I will post ‘before’ pictures.  Just keeping it real people!  This isn’t so much about cleaning, but more about getting things organized and getting my routines back in place so that I don’t feel so overwhelmed the second I step into our home.

I'll post about my progress!

Sick Day

Last night at 2:30 in the morning I got sick.  I won't go into the details, but it was not pretty.  Or fun.  I fell back asleep around 4:00, and then woke up around 5:30 and got sick again.  At that point I texted my boss and told her I wouldn't be in.  I feel back asleep and stayed in bed until 11:30.

After I woke up I took the dogs out and came back in and tried to eat something.  I laid on the couch for a while.  My husband came home early because he too was not feeling well.  We watched two episodes of Sherlock.  I slept for another two hours.

I think my body is trying to tell me to slow the heck down.

We have been so busy lately and I think it just all caught up with me today.  Physically, I still don't feel quite right, but I'm hoping by tomorrow morning I will be better.  I think all of the sleep I got today will help.

We have a very busy couple of weeks coming up, pretty much starting this weekend.  I have to work Saturday morning.  Saturday at 4:00 we have our French meeting.  After meeting there is a gathering for a new family that joined our group for Nigeria.

My husband is also starting a new job this month and he will be in California for an entire week for training.  The following weekend we will be in Arizona for our convention.

So lots of activity in the next few weeks.  I'm going to try not to do too much, commit to too much and just SLOW down during all the activity if that is possible.  I don't want to get sick again.

The ONLY good thing about being sick though is watching TV.  My husband and I have been watching Sherlock on Netflix (the BBC version).  We are on Season 3.  It is so so good.  My only complaint is that each episode is like an hour and a half (which explains why each 'season' is only 3 or 4 episodes).

It is, as the British would say, brilliant.

And I'm finally getting around to Season 3 of Call the Midwife.  

It too, never disappoints.  I guess I'm on a BBC kick today.  Right now I'm holed up in the bedroom on my super comfy bed with my 7-up and Pepto chewable tablets nearby.  And I'll probably be sleeping within an hour or so.